As we approach the Holy Week. Let us look at this name of God in our study today, in a way that prepares us to meditate upon this season. Let us see today that our Jesus is our Pascha.
Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump,
just as you are in fact unleavened.
For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
1 Corinthians 5:7
Pascha is the Greek word for Passover, and it means:
the paschal sacrifice (which was accustomed to be offered for the people’s deliverance of old from Egypt)
the paschal lamb,
the lamb the Israelites were accustomed to slay and eat on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan (the first month of their year) in memory of the day on which their fathers, preparing to depart from Egypt, were bidden by God to slay and eat a lamb, and to sprinkle their door posts with its blood, that the destroying angel, seeing the blood, might pass over their dwellings;
Christ crucified is likened to the slain paschal lamb
We are introduced to the passover in the book of Exodus…
Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roasted with fire, both its head and its legs along with its entrails. And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall burn with fire. Now you shall eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste—it is the Lord’s Passover.
Exodus 12:7-11
When we think of this passover event many moons ago in the land of Egypt, when God called Moses to go to Pharaoh to let His people go… that they might serve Him… we often times just think of the blood that was to cover the outside frame of the door.
We rarely discuss the context of the blood on the doorpost… there was much more to this night, this Passover. Just as there was more to the freedom of the Israelites than just freedom.
Moses was sent to Pharaoh to set the Hebrews free, not just for freedom’s sake, but so that they might serve Him.
We serve the one we obey… always.
As we look back at this Passover night we see that there was much more to this night than just slaying an unblemished lamb and wiping its blood on a door. They were to:
* eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs
* Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roasted with fire, both its head and its legs along with its entrails.
* you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall burn with fire.
* eat it in this manner: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste
What we so often times ignore about this first Passover is that the blood on the doorpost and lintel was simply a sign on the outside of the house of the obedience taking place on the inside of the house. The lamb’s blood on the outside doorpost on this night would mean nothing if those on the inside did not follow all of God’s instructions.
As we fast forward a couple thousand years we once again find our God giving instructions to eat…
Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.
John 6:52-57
What I want us to see now is that the word “eat” in John 6:52-57 is actually two different words.
John 6:53, …unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man…
Esthio:
- to eat
- to eat (consume) a thing metaph. to devour, consume
- to take food, eat a meal
John 6:54, He who eats my flesh…
Trogo:
to gnaw, crunch, chew raw vegetables or fruits (as nuts, almonds)
To me this word, trogo, tells us that we are not to partake of our Pascha in a light manner. We also need to know that He doesn’t go down easy. We have to put Him in between our teeth and chew. We must take Him as He is, straight off the tree, raw and alive and living.
He is our Pascha, our Passover, the Lamb that was slain. His precious blood put on the doorpost of our heart and the lentil of our soul that death might pass over us. We are to partake of Him as the Hebrews partook of the lamb slain in the first Passover. We are to eat all of Him, and leave nothing until morning. He went through the fire for us that we might eat of Him and be saved, that is, we who eat of Him in obedience to every Word of God.
We are to eat of Him with our loins girded with truth, the gospel of peace on our feet, and the sword of the Spirit in our hand.
In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,
Hebrews 5:7-9
Now lets rewind back two thousand years go…
Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household.
Exodus 12:3
A person could not just walk up to another’s lamb’s and grab a hyssop and smear blood on their outside doorpost and then walk inside their house and go to sleep, ignoring the rest of God’s instructions, and actually expect the death angel to pass over his home. They were each one to eat of the lamb. It was about much more than smeared blood. It was about personal consummation and individual obedience.
Our salvation is about much more than just being covered in the blood… Or claiming we are covered in the blood. It’s about what is going on inside the house under that blood. The outside is for display. The inside is what is saved. Remember the Hebrews left those blood stained doorpost in Egypt…
Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb.
Exodus 12:4
Notice that God expected only what each man should eat.
Precious one, this walk of faith and obedience is not issued out by an unjust God. When He stands before us and says eat and obey… Know that He is never, and will never, ever, put more on your plate than you can chew.
If He has set it before you, it is because He knows you can get it down.
However, beloved of God notice that there were NO unnecessary side dishes on that night. There was no big honkin’ slice of cake with overloaded icing for dessert. When it came time, this night, to sit before the Passover table and partake of that pascha lamb they were to clear their plate of everything and eat only what God had commanded them.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…
Hebrews 12:1